Id
by skyspireskit3
Summary: Sequel to "Rorschach." Post-ROTJ; Bruce and the Joker get a chance to talk.


This story really only makes sense if you've read my other fic "Rorschach."

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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The girl shrieks and spasms, fear-thinned pupils flaring gold and screams shrilling into yowls as the serum is pumped into her tourniqueted veins. Syringe empty, the man in the stained white coat steps back to watch, and after she goes limp in her restraints he records the results and walks back to his desk, past the sheets of grimy, strung-up plastic that curtain off more test subjects, their warped silhouettes twisting like shadow puppets around him as they scream, howl and bray. Mostly prostitutes and the homeless, nobody anyone will come asking after, the jungle-din of their agony melding into the machines' greasy hum. The air is saturated with urine and terror.

Dr. Cuvier is dead, his Chimera Institute fallen, but splicing has simply crept below ground to thrive on the shuffle of the black market, free of professional regulations and filters.

The man shuts the heavy door that gives him a world away from the screaming and sits down to reviews his notes. It's late, but he will sleep when he is dead. He's loading his microscope to peer down into the battleground of human cells and implanted catalysts, when the lights sputter and go out.

He isn't worried, at first. Rats in the wiring again, there's a lot of them down here; but on the heels of that thought is the reminder that there's been trouble these last few weeks, some of the other mom and pop labs bombed and looted by gangs. He grips the table to ground himself and reaches to summon someone, or for the weapon he keeps hidden, but stops when he sees something in the dark. Something faint and round like a blind cat's eye.

A ball.

Bouncing toward him like a rock across a lake. Skip, skip. It rolls to his feet and stops.

Too late he hears the hiss of escaping gas. The noxious green cloud hits him full in the face like a gout of flame, garroting his windpipe, searing his eyes and sinuses. He stumbles back over his chair, gets tangled in the rusted legs.

He's gagging, eyes sluicing futile tears, and his muscles writhe as something horribly like laughter starts to clutch his insides. Hoarse, wretched chuckling burns his throat, squeaks out through his teeth. He tastes blood as his lips are pulled as if by hooks into a grin.

A voice like oil-dipped silk, soft as smoke. "They just don't make 'em like the used to, do they?"

Squinting through the gas' charcoal smell, he sees a face looming over him, pale as a moon held prisoner down here. A heavy pipe in its hand.

"Ah, well…" The pipe glints over its head like a Reaper's scythe, judgment found him at last. "GOOD LUCK GETTING A REFUND NOW!"

On the floor, weak from convulsed giggling, can't even brace for the blow. But instead of the pipe, all he feels is an airless breeze as a scrap of the shadows breaks free and bullets into his attacker. They hit the floor in a grappling tangle and roll away into the dark.

The hard sounds of fists into flesh are pummeling the walls, but he can't see them anymore. His strangled lungs scream for a breath he can't draw.

He hears sound of something breaking, sees a crackle of light, soft as a distant campfire. He's not so surprised; it would've been ludicrously impractical to discard everything flammable from the lab. By the time the blast is rushing towards him, he can't even care, because right now dying just seems so very, very… _funny_…

--

Terry knows what's coming before he even sees it. He's not surprised; in these kinds of places, there's always something rigged to blow.

He shoves away from the Joker. The door. The victims. If he can just—

His night-vision explodes in molten heat.

--

At Wayne Manor, Bruce curses as the line goes dead.

He sends an alert to the police, directing them to the scene where the signal flickered out, and then can do nothing more than wait. Minutes crawl by like wing-pulled flies, and he's on the verge of going out there himself when Ace is jumping up, barking, hackles bristling like battlements along his spine. Bruce spins in his seat as the entrance of the cave slides open and the Joker bursts in with a holler, "SPECIAL DELIVERY!"

In the clown's arms is Terry, limp as a murdered bride. Bruce leaps up. "What have you done to him?!"

The Joker sweeps past him like he owns the place, his smugness a cologne in the air. "I could tell you, but the censors won't allow it."

He eases Terry down onto the nearest cot. The boy groans; the Joker's reply is almost tender, "Easy there, kiddo."

"Get away from him," Bruce snarls, dormant beasts uncurling beneath his breastbone. The Joker steps back, gloves opened in flags of mock surrender. His clothing has changed, a return to his favored, eyesore poison-fruit hues, ebony-green hair grown out and slicked back once more. "Is that any way to talk to an old friend?"

Bruce stills Ace with a word and moves to Terry, not turning his back to the Joker. He pulls off the mask to find the boy's black hair damp with blood, but the wound is small, only overdramatic. The Joker stands patiently, whistling to himself. Bruce's gaze cuts back to him.

"You're the one who's been raiding the underground splicing labs. Why?"

The Joker stretches languidly. His voice is tepid kerosene, lapping at the rawness of Bruce's nerves. "Preparations for my big comeback, of course, as the last one didn't quite pan out. To remind the world who owns this town. And, you know, have to support local businesses and all that…"

Bruce grips his cane like it's a sheathed sword. The Joker chuckles, a flutter of razor wire. "Sorry, Brucie, but as much as I know you're just _bursting_ with righteous fury right now…" He bares his wrist, taps a watch that isn't there, "if I don't walk out of here in a few minutes, some people of mine won't be very happy." He jerks his glass-cutter jaw in Terry's direction. "Do let me know how _he_ turns out, won't you? Hate to lose my _only_ source of entertainment in this dump."

"Never pegged you for a pedophile, Joker," Bruce mutters.

"Oh, I'm not prejudiced. Why, just ask dear old _Timmy_. Oh, that's right, you _can't_!"

Bruce strikes, electric fury shredding his vision, slamming the Joker back against the edge of the medical table. The Joker's back hits with a bruising crack, instruments scatter, but his smile never falters, unflinching into Bruce's fury. His eyes silkily gloat, _You know what you have to do._

But Bruce can't. Even now, he can't. Still pinned, his back ground painfully against the unforgiving edge, the Joker scoffs. "Nothing ever really changes, does it?" Before Bruce can stop him, he takes a pinch of the older man's leathery cheek, tugging the loose skin. "Well, maybe not _nothing…_"

Gripping him by the collar, Bruce suddenly feels the corpse-brittleness of his own hair against his scalp, the thinness of his bones beneath their armor of stubborn muscle, every ache and chink in the creaking ruins of his age-chewed, war-ravaged body. In the poison wine of those eyes is a swirl of flushed memories, his own weakness and shame. He unclenches his fists from the bruise-colored coat and steps back.

The Joker straightens, brushes himself off. His amusement is scalding. "_That's_ what kills you, doesn't it? That no matter what I did, even when I stole your little bird from the nest and clipped his frontal lobes, you could never kill me. And you know _why_."

Bruce is silent. The Joker sighs. "Do you know what I like about Terry? He _gets_ It. Sure, he doesn't act on it, keeps going on this ridiculous crusade of yours like it's in his blood or something, but he doesn't fool himself into thinking that any of this really means anything. Really, I can't _tell_ you how refreshing it is. Not like you, still beating your head against the wall even when the truth has you in its teeth like a rat terrier. Oh, don't get me wrong, he'll never replace you in my heart, my dear washed-up knight, oh no no, no one could ever replace _you_. But oh yes, I think he'll make a worthy opponent…that is, if you don't get him killed first."

"Gotham has changed, Joker," Bruce says. "There's no room for you in it anymore."

But the Joker isn't looking at him. His head is turned away, gazing at the costume (what was left of it after Inque's break-in) of Harley Quinn where it sits in its case, staring from its eyeless manikin. A strange, impromptu silence settles. But before Bruce can take advantage of his enemy's diverted attention or read his expression in the reflecting glass, the maniac turns back, grin splitting once more. "Then _why_ does it still need a _Batman_?"

"Get. Out."

The Joker walks off into the darkness, his laughter ringing in his wake until it fades into taint. "_Nothing ever changes! Nothing, I tell you!"_

Alone, Bruce sits at the computer console. He props his forehead on his knuckles and shuts his eyes to the point of pain. But he's surprised to find that he's not afraid. Perhaps he's simply too old. Or, and this he marvels at, he's come to trust Terry that much.

"He's a creep, ain't he." Bruce swivels to see Terry standing behind him, looking impossibly young and yet old as the grave. Bandages painfully white against rotdark bruises. Bruce is disturbed by how little guilt he feels. He can't explain it, but with Terry, it feels like it's only destiny.

Bruce turns away again. "You don't know the half of it."

They turn to the computers, knowing it'll be a waste of time to search the grounds. Bruce, fitting together the crooked jigsaw before him, slowly gets a picture of Tim, face bleached to unrecognizable rictus, and a flare of epiphany multiplies via DNA splicing it all over the city. The city that's washed the memory of its ringmaster from its Teflon surface.

They brace to meet the tragedies, and bury themselves in the work.


End file.
